Advice after latest land rip-off

Well, the land I owned was sold to a new estate owner. The first tier payment due to my new estate owner was due on Dec. 1. He had installed an ugly rent box on my property to pay. As per the covenant on the land, I paid the tier payment demanded from the tier box, which was $2826L. I logged on Saturday only to pay the tier when due, not having time to "play" this weekend, and so logged out after paying my tier.

In my e-mail today, I see that the estate owner has IMed me saying he was reclaiming my land, because tier was three days late. An impossibility because today was the 2nd day after tier was due, but also, I paid it.

In reviewing my account transactions, I see that I made a payment of $2826L to the rental box owned by the estate owner on Dec. 1 at 12:17:12. Then, after that, there is another transaction. I recevied $2826L, with the type "Object Pays," the source being my estate owner. This transaction occurred on Dec. 1 at 12:17:13, I suppose after I logged out.

So now my land is reclaimed. While I don't have recorded of what I initially paid for the land, it was around $50,000L, so that's gone. I guess the tier payment isn't gone, since the object paid it back to me. So essentially, my land is reclaimed despite having complied with the covenant and making payment. But my estate owner just gave the tier payment right back to me and reclaimed my land as "tier unpaid."

So, what can I do about this, if anything? Does an abuse report help?

P.S. I bought the land from another guy, who sold the estate to the current guy. With tier due on Nov. 16 to the old estate owner, I paid it, $14,000L, on Nov. 12. My land was sold to the new estate owner on Nov. 16, and the first thing my new estate owner told me was that the tier paid did not transfer, and I'd have to get a refund from the old estate owner. Of course, after IMing the old estate owner about this, I never received a response. Is there anything I can do about this?

nothing to do about anything tbh

what u can do however is im the new sim owner and paste the transaction log from the website asking him to explain why the tier has bounced back while u paid it, let him try to squeeze his way out of that as it will show in HIS transaction log

SL Comms went nuts yesterday and if he had the HippoRent system, someone might have been evicted unjustly. This happened to one of my tenants. I asked him first if he was moving out, but he told me he paid. He confirmed to me the date that he paid, with transaction number. I corrected his box.

Confront your new estate owner with the transaction number and time and make him give you back your land. Make him check his transaction history.

Can you tell me a little bit more about this problem? My transaction history shows that I paid "hippoRENT Rental Box 4.1".

I am using the web enabled version. I have no idea why it truncated his lease - he paid Friday night. But it thought he lapsed and evicted him today. I went by and asked if he was moving out. I don't shoot first unless I see that the furniture is all gone. He told me that he paid.

I really don't know what exactly went wrong, but he was the only one that this happened to.

all you can do is try to talk to the new owner
unfortunately if he refuses to do anything about it, there is nothing more you can do

same with previous owner

nothing you can do

This is messed up what's happened to you. But stuff like this goes on all the time as well as much worse. Mainly due to greed. Nothing but greed. In sl you gamble each and every time you use money.

This is why I neither associate nor do I want anything to do with anyone outside my inner circle. Many people here are just like this person you're referring to. All this talk about being friendly and nice goes out the window and this is one of the many reasons why.

I've had my share of problems with the perverted asses near my land which cause me to change my attitude towards most. Now I treat them all the same.

Lesson learned: Don't trust anyone, period. And Linden won't do a thing to help you either so you're basically on your own.

I see what happened. He thinks you didn't pay, but the box refunded you what you had paid. As he didn't see an increase in his L, and you didn't come inworld, he reclaimed the land. Chances are, all you really need do is talk to him. Let him know that you tried, but didn't realize that it didn't stick, and that you got refunded. If anything, direct him toward this forum post, because I had hell yesterday with a large share of my hippo boxes because of SL comms.

His reply was "i sent you 4 im's and let u know that the tierwas never paid not sure what more u wanted."

Here's the timeline:

On Nov. 17 he IMed me "tier is due on dec 1st no matter when u pd it"
(The no matter when you paid it referring to the fact that I had just paid tier to the previous estate owner."

Early in the morning on Dec. 1 (04:59) he IMed me, stored and e-mailed to me, "tier needs to be paid"

I logged in on Dec. 1 only to pay tier. I paid it to the ugly tier box in my back yard, at 12:17, a payment for one week of $2836. I immediately logged out.

Today, he sent me an IM at 7:40, stating "i will be reclaiming the land later today as tier is 3 days past due" That message was stored and e-mailed to me. I received it when I logged in tonight, at approximately 18:30 (not long before I started this thread, whenever that was).

I discovered that the land was already reclaimed. I checked my account transactions, locating the transaction in which I paid him. That's when I discovered the transaction one minute later, in which is object paid the money back to me. I sent him several long IMs, explaining that I paid him, that I didn't have any notice that anything was wrong until today, and that the account transaction record showed his rent box paying the money back to me. I included the transaction number of my payment to him.

I also IMed his business partner- listed in the covenant as a contact person- and that person IMed back stating that he was not involved in my region. (Though offering to contact him back if I didn't hear from the estate owner).

I waited a while and logged off. But before going to bed, I checked my e-mail. There was an IM- sent right after I logged off, no less- was his reply. "i sent you 4 im's and let u know that the tierwas never paid not sure what more u wanted". Of course, he was not logged in when I logged back in to speak interactively.

He did send me two other IMs after I paid the tier, but before the reclaiming-the-land IM. Both of those IMs were in my response to my request that something be done about the ugly rent box.

I know my landlords rental boxes return the payment if I don't pay the right amount. Did he raise the rent without telling you? If so you might have paid it at the old rate without noticing and that's why it was returned?

Not defending him, just struck me as a possibility.

The point is, you didn't know it refunded you. It doesn't matter if he sent 4 IMs, two of which had nothing to do with the actual payment. Granted, with comms being as borked as they have been, you may not have gotten those IMs, especially if they came during the logoff period. Just ask nicely for the land back and apologize for the misunderstanding - clearly you intended to pay. It's not like you forced the box to refund you.

I did not buy the land from him initially. The former estate owner sold the sim to the current estate owner. When the current sim owner took over, he changed the covenant. Formerly, I did not have a rental box on the land to pay tier. After the new owner took over, he put a rental box on my land (an ugly, ugly box in the middle of my back yard). Dec. 1 was the first time I was paying tier to the new estate owner via the new rental box.

I paid the amount in the floating yellow text over the rental box. That was the only way I could know the tier; the new covenant does not specify tier, and directs that payment is to be made to the rental boxes in the amount on the rental box.

I think your problem was that you focused on the rental boxes too much, it really wasn't worth losing 50k just because you didn't like them, if I get that response from someone on where I manage I'm 99% certain and right that most of the time they're going to be nothing but trouble…

My only advise would be don't rent from residents unless you know them and they have good
track record. I suggest you pay LL directly and tell your friends or in another place not to rent.
Word of mouth is your only revenge but you can't do it here in forums but elsewhere yes.
Land right now is 7.7 l a meter cheapest lots are around 3800l.
For 10 dollars a month or premium acccount you can get 512m2 lot without the hassle the equivelent in lindens 26k for a whole year.

I don't really want the land back. When the current estate owner took over, I had considered selling it, because the prior estate owner ripped me off, and I realized for the first time how easy it was for me to be ripped off and how I had no recourse when I am ripped off. But instead of selling then, and salvaging what money I could, I decided to trust the new guy.

I really don't want to have to worry about something like this happening again. I don't want to have to sit in front of a computer all the time waiting for an IM saying "respond right away, or you'll lose a lot of money." I don't want to give my money anymore to someone who is not responsible with it. I don't want to be up until 4 a.m. right now trying to resolve this. After the land was reclaimed, it was immediately resold to someone who has already put a house on it, so giving the land back to me would displace that person, and all I want to do with the land is to sell it for what I can salvage.

What I have lost is the ability to sell that particular piece of land, so I would like to have is whatever it was just sold for (which I knew is far less that what I paid for it to begin with). But by reclaiming my land and re-selling it, the estate owner just made a quick $100 US or whatever, and I know I'm not getting that out of his hands.

No, I don't want thet headache of the land back. I'd like to recover some of that chunk of money I threw away to "buy" the land. That money is more useful to me as dollar bills burning in my fireplace than in Second Life real estate.

Edit: Well, if land is selling for 7.7 as another poster suggested, then I guess I actually lost closer to $170 USD. I had 6000+ sq m.

I am sorry for your loss. I have been there myself with land.
There are problems with rent or buying directly from LL but you don't have to worry about being evicted unless you break a rule or quit paying.
Sadly LL won't protect residents in situations like this we sort of on our own buyer beware.
I suggest you not waste money paying someone else's tier in future and be homeless for bit save up for your own land on mainland buy while the land is cheap. Right now its possible to get land under 5k a 512m2 lot when I joined last year lots were going for up to 10 L a meter or more.

There are two problems here:

1. It's not the new owners responsibility to give you back any money you paid to someone else. Don't forget this new landowner may have paid a very large amount to the previous island owner too, maybe he's all stressed out about the situation.

2. That you thought about passing on the buck to someone else, you to would have been selling land to someone whom it would not have belonged too. However, I kind of sympathize, you were in effect ripped off.

If you can't renegotiate with the new land owner, you just have to give this up as a bad learning curve.

alternative: look around on mandhari island...

Why on earth are people paying these huge amounts up front to island owners? What is this payment FOR? The right to then rent? This upfront payment gets you no guarantees of anything at all.

Time and time again we are hearing of people loosing this sum when island owners sell, leave or just get it into their heads to evict someone.

Why is it not just pay so much per week/month to rent - simple as that?

That is the bit that doesn't make sense to me.

I believe it's because only a VERY small minority of SL residents are actually aware that buying private estate doesn't give you ANY guarantees at all. I'm sure this is something LL wouldn't want to advertise either, what could they say… "our most valued customers, our island buyers may offer to sell you part of their islands, however, they not actually selling you anything at all, whatever you pay it is still theirs, it's not yours and it never will be"?

Apples and oranges, though, comparing Mainland and Estate land values. The whole concept of "buying" Estate land with up-front "purchase" price is kinda strange, when I think about it; I don't see Mainland landlords charging what amounts to a one-year advance "deposit" with the promise of being able to maybe get the next tenant's "deposit" when they leave, if the landlord doesn't concoct an excuse to evict them first.

Is there a real distinction between these scenarios--one of which is hypothetical because it's patently absurd?

Another reason I would never want to rent. It's just a fool's game in the end, all the risk of the mainland but none of the benefits, at usually a higher price overall.

Broccoli

Renting can be ok, so long as you pay nothing upfront. I pay my landlord slightly more than I would pay to LL for tier on the mainland for the same size plot. I did not have to "buy" the land when I started renting, all I have ever paid is rent. I can do anything with the land I could do on the mainland (in fact more, because the terraform limit isn't 4m).

It is more expensive in terms of the monthly payment, but the extra I will pay over 12 months will roughly be the same as I would pay to buy a plot of that size on the mainland at current prices, and a lot less than I would have had to pay at the time I moved in when prices were still well over L$10 per sq.m.

When I ran communities in estate sims, I didn't charge a 'purchase price' or 'setup fee'; it just didn't seem right to do so, but each to their own, and there are plenty of respectable landlords/ladies that do. What I found hard to understand is I actually had people who did not want to 'rent' unless they paid a 'purchase price' - they wanted to be able to say they 'owned it', and no matter how much you tried to explain that they are getting the same deal without having to pay that 'purchase price', they just wouldn't have it! It's amazing what people will pay in order to be able to fool themselves.

I'd think it's more a sign of successful indoctrination by those sim owners who do "sell" private estate land.

I don't think people come into SL with the idea that "owning" virtual land is better than "renting" virtual land, that's something they have to be told once they get here.